More breakfast stuffs!

Again this morning I awoke, much like yesterday morning: in need of motivation to get out of bed. I didn't really want thick pancakes AGAIN (heaven forbid), so I went to the other end of the pancake spectrum, and I made crepes of sorts. I took out the Jiffy and added copious amounts of milk. Then I added wheat germ for kicks. The first one turned out too thick and it was a little gross and under-cooked, so I threw it out. The second one turned out well:


The third turned out really well, so I got bold and added cinnamon and some powdered sugar to the fourth. In the end I added blueberries, cottage cheese, and honey to them, and they were simply delicious!!!

Unicorns and Tattoos.

I recently decided I need a tattoo. I've wanted a tattoo since college. My limiting factor is that I haven't been able to decide what I want. I know, I know, I feel as though maybe I'm going about this in the wrong order. I should have something I feel endeared to and THEN decide about its permanent position on my body.

After some deliberation, I decided that I want a unicorn! Unicorns have had a place all along in my life. From the collection of My Little Ponies to the Blatant Unicorn, to the most recent connection with the all powerful mother monster: Lady GaGa. Let's explore these ideas a little more in depth, shall we?

In my childhood, I was preoccupied with miniature things. My Little Ponies totally fed into this mild obsession. I had quite a few ponies and my recollection (MommyDaddy, feel free to correct me) is that I would often assemble all the ponies in our front yard flower bed among the blooming daffodils and proceed to engage in pony life reenactments. From there, once I was a little too old for such things, I picked up fantasy books that included unicorns. Maybe I should reread some of those classics.

In college, the Blatant Unicorn was the name of my apartment with Katie O that supplied booze and pancakes to anyone at most any hour. The name developed in opposition to another Athens after-party spot called the Secret Squirrel. In addition, we (or Katie? or Adair?) managed to secure a pretty fantastic clock, which you can appreciate in the photo below behind Christine and me.



As for the Lady GaGa reference, Katie recently posted a quote on my facebook wall from Lady GaGa, mother monster herself: "I had My Little Ponies. I was obsessed with the idea of a creature that was born with something magical that sort of made them the misfit in the world of the stallion. I’m actually quite obsessed with unicorns. They are in essence a mythical creature. The unicorn is born magical and it’s not the unicorn’s fault and it doesn’t make it any more or less special or any less unique but it can’t help that it was born with that magic." In addition, the music video from her latest single reveals the following image:



SO, back to the actual tattoo talk. After asking for several submissions from friends, I received a couple that I really liked including these two images:





Then I got a referral to a tattoo artist who took into account "what I want" and came up with this:


Ya, I'm ok with it, but not wild about it. BUT, because I didn't hate it, I went ahead and scheduled to get this tattoo...TOMORROW. WTF was I thinking?! Anyway, I'm not going to get a tattoo tomorrow, no one freak out (mostly talking to myself, here). I think I have determined that I want to go with something a little more symbolic as opposed to so literal. Thus, I am gravitating toward the Lady GaGa image.

The Love of Life

Despite my incredible hiatus from blogging, I'm actually just going to post a fairly brief update on the reason I got out of bed this morning: foooooooood. Mmmm, hmmmm.

I went out to a fabuloso dinner last night with my friend, Henrik. He and I prefer dinners that are extravagant in most ways. Last night's dinner was no exception. We started with specialty cocktails with cachaca for Henrik and a vodka/champagne drink for me. We then had a green salad with cara cara oranges, pecorino, and a caper dressing. This was followed by the main attraction to the restaurant: coffee rubbed pork shoulder for Henrik (SOOOOO amazing) and beef sirloin (medium rare) with artichokes and horseradish sauce for me. We finished off with a crepe with grapefruit and dark chocolate ice cream for Henrik and little "hot date" pastries with candied kumquat for me. It was a remarkable evening of food and great conversation.

Thus, this morning I awoke and needed to find a good reason to get out of bed. I am procrastinating working on a fairly big presentation/paper due Tuesday, so that surely didn't help me think about getting up. I then decided that I would actually try and make some good oatmeal. (My main breakfast staple these days; but I usually just add hot water to instant oats with an occasional addition of dried fruit). Once in the kitchen, I became inspired by the cast iron skillet on the stove. I decided to make oatmeal pancakes! It got even more elaborate when I realized that I had a few leftover items from several batches of homemade granola: wheat germ and flax seeds. So, I took out the Jiffy and mixed in instant oats, flax seeds, wheat germ, and milk. When it reached the appropriate consistency, I poured 3 cakes into the hot, oiled skillet. Then I remembered I just bought blueberries as well! What resulted was a combination pancake/biscuit with great thickness and good flavor, which I augmented further with a little bit o' honey. I photographed the final product:


Yum!

March On.

I am supposed to be studying for my first final this quarter/semester that is tomorrow, but I have successfully procrastinated for about 3 hours. Don't get me wrong, I studied yesterday, and the day before. And I also studied earlier today--twice!

But tonight, instead of studying, I have showered, fed myself, watched an episode of House, discovered a funny blog, caught up on a more sobering blog, and am now blogging myself. :)

Those things are accomplishments, right?


Fine. I'll study.



PS I also altered the colors on my blog page.

PT School: proof of fun.

The DPT Class of 2012 of UCSF/SFSU is fortunate enough to have a talented video artist, Tin Pham, within the ranks. Since the first video he showed, I knew he was sharing some cool stuff, and this most recent video pretty much has me as one of the main characters/singers. I figured that it is time to share them all in one place:

Intimidation Videos for a Flip Cup Rivalry with the Second Year DPT Students:

Training

Set-Up

Thank you to DPT 2 for all you do...

Side Note: I am not in the first few videos very much, and I wasn't even able to attend the final showdown of Flip Cup because of a wedding back east...but I don't think we won.

October (The pictures of people dressed up is at my Lady Gaga party. I'm the one in the blond wig)

End of Fall Quarter 2009/Holidays

Class trip to Tahoe: February 13-15th

This is the video where I'm actually filmed. And I'm singing my heart out. I also managed to work with Brianna and a few others to feed all 25 of us that were there all weekend. It was awesome.

Sometimes there is rain.

I moved to California under the impression that it was the Golden State due to its sunny nature. Then I found out that it's only named this because the grass all dies in the summer due to lack of rain, and so the hills literally appear "gold"--or so someone thought. This statement reminds me of how green Greenland is, not that I've been.





We've been caught in a few days of rain. Today it appeared gorgeous this morning, and I believed that it would remain this way all day (especially since we had a reprieve yesterday). Regardless, I was wrong, and I rode my bike home in the rain. While some might find this dirty and cold, which it was; it was also incredibly fun, and it made me feel alive.




Also, the city has recently revealed that it isn't all chilly, bleak, rainy days. These are a few shots I've taken with my iphone.

Hello 2010.

Ha! Remember that time I blogged? Ya, me neither. :)

Well, I made a new year's resolution: to blog 1x/month. Unfortunately, based on the current date, I've already failed. But I am unwilling to completely fail: so here I am trying to make up for January (we're not too far into February, right?). I made this new year's resolution because of a comment from my long lost Pookster, Katie O, who resides in Kenya and rarely gets to catch up with me. I figured that others might also be curious about what I've been up to as well.

Not much has changed, really, since I last blogged in JULY 2009. Wow, that's embarrassing: July. Anyway, not much has changed except my wonderful growing knowledge of PT and life and love and new friends...Yes, I have had time for a few things despite my schedule. However, these aren't always easy to manage. As I write this, I am procrastinating studying more for a midterm tomorrow in Physiology on the kidneys and the GI tract. Exciting as they can be, I'm tired of solute channels and the causes of osmotic diarrhea. Though, speaking of weird bodily functions, please share any with me, as my new favorite thing seems to parsing out diagnoses and illnesses with their respective medication lists. No joke. Really. Try me.

I did have a fantastic January in my program: I was able to participate in my very first clinical rotation at a hospital in San Francisco. Three times per week I spent my afternoons shadowing a PT in the acute care (read: with pretty sick people) and then eventually, I saw some patients under the supervision of the PT. It was cool! And it was exhausting: both mentally and physically AND emotionally. On my first day, I saw an elderly couple (separately, as one was in the ICU) who were in the same car accident. They had both already spent an extended amount of time in the hospital and were recovering from fractured pelvises and legs, diaphragm ruptures, and emergency surgery to save their lives. And now they were basically living in the hospital with no family to speak of. This hit me pretty hard. I had to go in and work with each of them on moving their arms and legs (in PT speak=range of motion, ROM). Both were a little resistant and distrusting of all the people bustling in and out of their rooms. I can understand why, too: bells, alarms, buzzers all go off constantly in the hospital at all hours--especially in the ICU. There is such thing at ICU psychosis, and I definitely can see why. Anywho, I saw each of them several times during my rotation, but they both remain in the hospital as far as I know. Luckily, the nurses and staff were willing to go out on a limb for them, since they had been there so long, and they arranged for them to get together (for one to get rolled down to ICU to see the other). I wasn't there for the reunion, but I think they at least were grateful to see a familiar face.

In the midst of the clinical, I also had class. Now that the rotation is over, I just have class. This is a slight bummer as we average 25-30 hrs/week. I understand that this sounds lovely compared to working full-time, but it's a little hard when those are just hours spent listening, not necessarily synthesizing information. However, I have definitely been able to have some information start sinking into my brain--and it feels so amazing.

This is turning into a longer break from studying than I was anticipating, but I think it was worth it.